


Never Let You Go

by astralmelody



Category: Pocket Monsters: Sword & Shield | Pokemon Sword & Shield Versions
Genre: Abuse, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Piers isn't just emo as all hell for nothing that's for sure, Suicidal Thoughts, other familiar characters do make appearances, they're honestly just really good friends for the most part, timeframe is entirely pre-game, warnings are at the beginnings of chapters where they apply
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-19
Updated: 2020-04-08
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:55:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 20,859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22805227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astralmelody/pseuds/astralmelody
Summary: Piers was unsure why he and Raihan had even run back into each other after wrapping up their Gym Challenges. But he was lucky they did.A story full of tragic backstories, trauma, and an unrelenting friendship.
Relationships: Kibana | Raihan/Nezu | Piers
Comments: 31
Kudos: 122





	1. Chapter 1

“Linoone! Use Double-Edge!” His attacks were growing desperate; he was down to the last member of his team. They’d made it all the way to Wyndon, he wasn’t about to give it up here. This was not the time to break.

“Yeah!! Hang in there, we almost got ‘im!” he called out to his partner, as it braced for the recoil. The pair watched their opponent’s Dynamaxed pokémon return to its normal size, most of its health depleted. The boy pushed his black and white bangs up out of his face in excitement. “See? We got this,” he said, more to himself than anyone else.

Across the field, his opponent stood tall and proud. “You sure about that?” He taunted with a smirk. His partner was weak, but the grin on his face meant he had something up his sleeve.

In a harsh wind, swirls of dust rose up around them.

Piers deflated. He was so focused on surviving three Dynamax attacks that he’d forgotten about the field conditions. “We’ve got this…” he repeated hopefully, under his breath, watching his Linoone brace itself for the storm.

His heart skipped a beat as he watched his pokémon stumble, then fall. He sighed, returning Linoone to his ball. “Great run, pal,” he whispered to it.

“And that’s it, folks!” The announcer’s voice rang throughout the stadium, over the cheers of hundreds of fans in the stands. Even though he had lost, it was still pretty surreal that they’d made it this far. He smiled to himself as he looked up at the results on the massive display, quietly walking his way back to the center of the stadium. “The first round goes to Gym Challenger Raihan, of Hammerlocke!”

Raihan nearly tripped over his own feet as he darted across the field to the sound of another roar of applause. “Nice match, mate!!” He practically threw his hand out towards Piers.

“Thanks! I really thought I’d have ya beat,” Piers laughed lightly as he shook Raihan’s hand. It truly had been a great battle.

Raihan laughed too. “Hey, maybe someday you will!” he teased, stretching his arms behind his head. Piers rolled his eyes, but wasn’t mad. He was right — the only thing that had kept him from a win this time was a small oversight. Even up against a Dynamaxed opponent, he and his team had held their own, right up until the end.

“The next challenger on the pitch is crowd favorite Leon, all the way from Postwick!” Another announcement and another round of cheers from the stands followed.

Piers chuckled. “Oh man, good luck.” Leon had always been a gym or two ahead of him and Raihan; he was hard to catch up with. And he knew that Raihan had challenged him directly more than once, and had yet to win.

“Tch,” Raihan grinned confidently. “I got this.”

A nurse jogged over to the field to heal Raihan’s pokémon, which Piers took as his cue to head out. “You got this!” He called over his shoulder on his way out.

Piers leaned against the main counter in the foyer, waiting patiently for the attendant to heal his team. The match after his was being shown on the TVs around the room, but the commotion in the lobby was enough to drown out the sound of the commentary. Even still, he could tell that Raihan was — quite frankly — getting his ass handed to him by Leon.

“You really couldn’t be bothered to Dynamax this one time.” A familiar, critical voice rose from behind him.

“We were fine.” He rolled eyes as he turned around to face his stepfather. “I don’t want t’ pu—“

“You don’t want to push your Pokemon too far. Yeah yeah, we’ve all heard it.” Rich Styvens. Piers’ stepfather, self-appointed mayor of Spikemuth, and everyone’s biggest critic. Particularly Piers’. “If you had pushed ‘em, you woulda won that. Coulda been Champion by now.”

Piers sighed. Any pride he’d had in himself had just been completely shot down. So much for a great Gym Challenge.

“Piers?”

“Oh, yeah. Thank ya.” He took his pokéballs back from the stadium attendant, rolling them around in his palms briefly. He was still proud of his team., regardless of what anyone had to say about it. They had given it all they had, all the way from their first gym battle together, all the way to the biggest stadium in Galar. He just called the shots wrong. He’d barely had the time to get his team back in his bag before a demand came from his stepdad.

“Take your sister.” He handed Marnie down to Piers, barely looking at either of them.

“Y’know she can walk, right?” It wasn’t that Piers’ minded carrying Marnie; he’d done it plenty of times before. He was just annoyed that Rich never paid enough attention to have noticed something like that. Rich just glared down at the two of them.

Determined to demonstrate, Piers let her stand on the ground, sliding back a few feet before crouching down to her level. She took a few steps forward, stumbling a little, but still being relatively stable for an infant. In all fairness, it probably couldn’t be considered “walking” in true form — at least not enough to navigate a crowded stadium lobby — but Piers was still really proud of her. He smiled encouragingly at her before catching her in his arms and picking her back up.

“Nice work, kid!” He ruffled her jet black hair, and she giggled sweetly in response. Rich got on his nerves for sure, but nothing made him smile quite like his kid sister. The Gym Challenge had been a blast, and a welcome reprieve, but he had to admit he was relieved to be able to head home and spend more time with her. He took a last look around the Wyndon Stadium lobby and turned to follow his stepdad out the door.

“Hey!!! Piers!!!” A familiar voice called after him across the room, and before he knew it, Raihan had placed himself right between Piers and the front door. The lanky teen stood with his hands on his knees, panting. Piers put together that he’d just sprinted here after his battle.

“How’d ya do?” Piers asked him, already knowing the answer. If Raihan had won, he’d still be up on the pitch getting ready for the next match. He watched Raihan’s signature snarl of defeat crawl across his face as the boy caught his breath and stood up straight.

“Still can’t beat that kid,” he complained, looking off into the distance.

A coy smirk made its way across Piers’ face. “Well, maybe someday you will.”

Raihan chuckled at the way the kid had re-purposed his own jab. “Alright, alright…” he smiled warmly, and happened to catch Marnie’s eye as he brought his gaze back down to Piers. “Who’s this lil cutie?” He had already bent down to her level to wave at her.

“This is Marnie!” Piers beamed. “She’s the sister I was tellin’ ya about that one time.” They hadn’t crossed paths too often on their separate challenges — mostly just when they were waiting around for gyms — but they’d still had some time to chat here and there.

“It’s nice to meet ya, Marnie!” Raihan reached out a hand to her, as if he was expecting her to shake it. “I’m Raihan!”

Marnie looked back at him apprehensively, and clung a bit tighter to Piers’ side.

“Not one for introductions I guess,” Raihan observed, the disappointment clear in his voice.

“She’s _one_.” There were a number of things that seemed to exist beyond Raihan’s comprehension. Piers laughed out loud at the thought that this was one of them.

Raihan shrugged it off, as he did with most inconveniences. “Well, I’ve gotta go.” He did always seem like he was in a hurry to be somewhere else, though Piers was never really sure how a kid their age could possibly be up to that much. “Just wanted to say thanks again for a great battle!” He flashed his signature toothy grin, and Piers returned the gesture.

“What’re you thankin’ _him_ for?” Piers winced a bit at the force behind that statement, knowing it was directed at him. Rich had made his way back over, but was clearly irritated that they weren’t already on the road back to Spikemuth yet. “He lost.”

Raihan remained upbeat, as usual. “Well yeah, but not by much!” he explained. “If that Sandstorm had fizzled out a turn too early, he would’ve had me.” He shot a look over to Piers that told him he’d been genuinely impressed.

“But it didn’t.” Rich's reminder was full of contempt.

Neither was really sure what to say. Piers was pretty used to this kind of tension, but Raihan stammered awkwardly for a bit, trying to come up with a good retort. Piers shook his head, to let Raihan know he was fine, which seemed to be enough for him.

“Well uhhh… yeah. That’s it,” Raihan concluded nervously. But he turned to Piers and his cheerfulness returned without an issue. “Catch ya around sometime?” he asked with a half-wave.

“O’ course.” Piers smiled back and returned his wave before heading back home. That was it. His Gym Challenge was over, and he was on his way back to Spikemuth, probably for good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're not even into the good parts yet, just an establishing little intro.
> 
> The idea for this story has been relentlessly occupying every available ounce of my brainspace for weeks now, so I'm pumped to get to share it! :)


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Years went by before the two of them crossed paths again, though not under the greatest circumstances.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **TW: suicidal ideation, self-harm.**

Piers stood balanced atop the handrail of Hammerlocke’s eastern bridge, his gaze fixed on at the railroad tracks below. He’d started his night on another late walk to clear his head, but made a firm decision after realizing that wasn’t going to happen. It never did; he’d always just wander back home feeling exactly as bad, only for things to keep getting worse. Rinse and repeat. Not anymore.

He’d tossed the idea around in his head a couple of times before; it wasn’t a completely new concept. He’d just never stayed out long enough to do anything about it until now.

The train line was usually busy and bustling, but was quiet and vacant under the dark stillness that settled in as the night drew on. Piers focused in on the way the moonlight bounced off the metal tracks as they curved around the city. For a split second, he reconsidered whether or not a fall from this height would actually be enough, but eventually decided that it didn’t make a difference.

He shifted his weight on the balls of his feet, mildly alarmed by how calm he was about all of this. For months he’d been a nervous wreck nearly one hundred percent of the time. A few of the Gym Challengers had been made gym leaders in the past few years: Bea, Nessa, and most recently, Raihan. It had been all over the news. And Leon was the _goddamned Champion_ , sitting comfortably on a throne that hadn’t been touched for years.

And what had he done? _Nothing_.

Well, not exactly nothing. He’d basically been raising Marnie himself for the past five years, though he knew it was a struggle to do a good job of it. He was constantly busy, helping out where he could around town to help raise morale and handle others’ challenges. Spikemuth was in decline, and despite everyone’s best efforts, they still had yet to turn it around. Once the buzzing about his Gym Challenge had worn down, no one had given him — or Spikemuth — a second thought. And it showed. Everyone in town was barely scraping by. He just hoped his sister wouldn’t remember him as having never been around.

At least they had a home, which he knew he should be grateful for. But every minor misstep on his part caused all hell to break loose within its walls. Whether he’d been just a little bit too loud, or come home just a little bit too late, or even just been seen out and about with “the wrong crowd”, he could expect to come home to his stepdad’s anger. Even when he did things right, there was always some sort of harsh criticism waiting to be made about he could be worth more if he he’d only just be more. By now, he’d honestly forgotten how to pick himself up from anything.

He let the tension fall out of his chest with a breath, resolved after mulling over the state of things. He could’ve done better. He could’ve pushed harder. He could have been what Spikemuth needed to finally get back to their lives. But instead, he’d been letting them down for years.

He zoned out for a bit as each depressing thought hung in the front of his mind. But the glistening of a tear rolling off his face, getting caught in the moonlight from every angle as it fell, brought him back enough to realize that he _wasn’t_ calm. He just wasn’t processing anything right anymore.

But whether he was calm or not, it’s not like things were going to change if he went back…

“Hey. Whatcha up to?” The sound of Raihan’s voice shook him out of his thoughts so hard he nearly jumped. Sure, it’d been years since Piers had heard it last, but the familiar tone and that slightest bit of a growl made it absolutely unmistakable. Something about hearing a familiar voice was almost….relieving?

Still, he couldn’t bring himself to speak. He didn’t have the right words to explain everything that’d been running through his head. And even if he thought he did, he knew they’d get stuck in his throat.

“…’m sorry,” he finally managed to get out, lifting his head to look back up at the moonlight across the hills.

“Hm?” Raihan turned to look at him, genuinely puzzled. “What are you sorry for?”

Piers kept his eyes fixed on the outline of the hills in the distance for another minute, trying to steady himself, before turning to answer. It was just then that he sensed the feeling of Raihan’s arm wrapped around his leg, hand firmly on his calf, holding him up. He looked like he’d been there awhile. He was leaned up against the same handrail, seeming mostly casual aside from the tightness of his grip and the look in his eyes.

Piers opened his mouth, though not with an answer. He had his own questions. “How long have you—?”

“Since I got here. I just…” Raihan answered quickly, but dropped his gaze as he trailed off. In the silence that stood between them, Piers took note of the tone of Raihan’s voice. It was colder than usual. Quieter, and… sharper? And why was he being so short with him?

He flinched at the realization that Raihan was angry with him. “I… I’m sorry,” he offered up again, choking up.

Raihan turned back to him. “No, no, you’re okay! I saw you up here and just… knew something was really wrong.” In the moment of silence that fell around them in place of a response, he realized he had tightened his grip on Piers’ leg.He let up, reaching out with his other hand instead.

Without a word, Piers grabbed his hand in both of his own, and slowly, shakily stepped down off the rail. “Hey.” Raihan spoke softly, to get Piers’ attention. He wouldn’t look at him, but that was okay for now, Raihan figured. He was just happy to have him off the ledge.

“We can sit?” he offered, noticing exactly how unstable Piers was. He got no response, but started guiding Piers downwards anyway. He figured the kid could use a break, whether he’d agree to it or not.

Piers hit the ground hard and fast, pulling Raihan’s hand with him as his knees crashed into the pavement underneath him. Raihan followed him down carefully, kneeling next to him.

“That looked like it hurt,” he observed out loud. “You okay?”

Piers nodded, not looking at him. Raihan could see he’d scraped up his knees pretty bad, but had a feeling it was the least of his concerns at the moment. He gave Piers a minute to breathe, not wanting to shake him up any further, but still kept his eyes on him.

They hadn’t seen each other in years, and while Raihan figured he looked pretty much the same himself — just taller — Piers had changed quite a bit. His hair was longer now, brushing the tops of his shoulders in the same, segmented black and white streaks that Raihan could never quite figure out the logistics of. He’d put a bit of muscle on, but otherwise still had the same scrawny frame as years ago. Raihan noticed a series of parallel cuts across Piers upper arm — a few of them still bleeding — but kept quiet about them. He knew that their Gym Challenge had put a lot of pressure on Piers, and he got the sense that he hadn’t exactly gone back to the friendliest of places afterward.

He let the silence hang between them for another few moments, until he noticed that Piers had calmed down a bit.

“Why did you apologize to me up there?” he asked gently. “You haven’t done anything wrong.”

Piers looked at him blankly for a second, and eventually shrugged. “Ya sound different. You’re mad, and ’m sorry.”

“I’m not mad at all, I was just really… scared. Didn’t want to say the wrong thing. I’m the one who should be sorry, and I am.” Raihan watched Piers for a response, hoping he understood, but his fearful expression didn’t change. “What would I be mad at you for?”

The two of them sat in silence while Raihan kept his eyes fixed on Piers. He was frantic, but Raihan patiently watched him, hoping he would realize he had done nothing to apologize for.

Piers eventually broke the silence. “For…” he choked on his words a bit, and fumbled for a split second over how to put them back together.

Raihan, genuinely baffled about how Piers had come up with anything to feel guilty for, cut in to remind him, ”You didn’t do anything wro—“

“For trying to fucking _die_ , Raihan!” Piers spat, finally breaking. Tears ran down his face as he ground his teeth into each other, breathing heavily. Raihan had been thrown off by his volume, but otherwise… hadn’t reacted. He wasn’t exactly surprised. He just kept looking back at him with the same sad look he’d had since he first showed up.

“You…” Piers swallowed hard, finally processing the way the situation had played out. “You knew that, didn’ you?”

Raihan nodded. The last thing he wanted was to add more drama to whatever nightmare he knew was unfolding in Piers’ head, but he needed to know what was going on. He wanted to help.

He reached out to grab Piers’ hand, and squeezed it tightly. “Why?” he asked. “What’s been going on?”

He wanted to talk about it, but he’d never had the chance. Between all the effort and time that he’d put into seeming stronger, more responsible, more helpful to the people around him, he’d set up an expectation up for himself that everything was fine. That he was strong enough to handle everything.

He looked up at Raihan, but quickly looked away, anxiously fixating on a small tile at the edge of the bridge.

“I’m not…” he started, but shook his head and tried to start over, the words blurring in his mind before he could get them out. “I’m not… everythin’s jus’… I…”

Raihan put a hand on his shoulder, hoping to calm him down a bit, but instead, Piers crumbled. Raihan slid his hand down to his back.

“Hey,” he pressed lightly. “Come back to my place for a sec, okay? I’ll get your knees patched up at least?” It was rare for Raihan, ever-confident to a fault, to speak in questions, but he was well aware that he was grasping at straws here. He needed to get Piers somewhere safe, and he was doing all that he could to make that happen.

He sighed with relief as Piers pushed himself up with one hand, and absently tried to untangle his hair. He followed suit, and quietly lead the way back into Hammerlocke.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for taking an INCREDIBLY sharp turn into depressing here.
> 
> I'm rolling with Sword gym leaders here, partially because it was the one I played. It’s not really of huge importance


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Piers gets patched up, the boys chat about their lives up until now.
> 
> Raihan's actually a pretty good listener.

The pair stood in front of the locked front door of the Hammerlocke Vault. As Raihan repeatedly shook and twisted the door handle with a focused determination, Piers stood quietly to the side. He’d let the worst of his thoughts roll into the back of his mind on the walk through the city. Raihan showing up had changed the way he was expecting his night to play out. He was okay with that.

He had come back to himself a bit, and was mostly just content to watch Raihan do… whatever it was he was doing. Having a fair amount lock-picking experience himself, watching Raihan fight with the door was actually pretty comical. 

“Haaaah, yes!” Raihan whispered loudly as the door clicked open. Piers just looked back at him, arms crossed. “The door doesn’t lock right. Just… don’t tell anyone that.” 

Piers nodded in agreement, still unsure what Raihan was planning that involved… breaking into the vault? At 1 in the morning? Whatever it was, he seemed determined, and Piers wasn’t about to deny him that. 

Raihan made a motion for Piers to follow him inside, and he obliged. Raihan reached an arm around the front desk and pulled out a decently large white box. “First aid kit.” he explained.

Piers nodded again. Raihan was always one to over-narrate, but he wasn’t really waiting for an explanation. He was really just relieved to not be out this late alone. He didn’t particularly care what they did. 

He followed Raihan through another door, around some stairs, and into a dark room. Raihan leapt ahead to flip the switch on a small desk lamp, which only just barely illuminated the room.

Piers looked around. This was a bedroom. More specifically, it was Raihan’s bedroom, and it looked like he’d been living here for a long time. There were all kinds of things scattered around the room, from worn-out Pokémon toys that were clearly years old, to a newspaper from the past week. “Hammerlocke’s Dragon takes up his Castle”. He remembered reading the headline, however corny it was.

Raihan rushed into the adjacent bathroom and flipped on the light. “Just uhhhhhh… give me a sec to clean up.” The look on his face made it incredibly clear that he hadn’t been expecting guests.

“No prob,” Piers gave a slight wave of understanding as he made his way across the room.

He sat down on the bed by the wall, taking in the sheer amount of _stuff_ strewn about the room. Posters, scattered clothes, stacks of books in the strangest locations — all very befitting of the absolute whirlwind that Raihan had always proven to be. He smiled at the idea that Raihan hadn’t really changed much since they met. He scanned around the room again, and something caught his eye — a small picture frame on Raihan’s bedside table. He picked it up gently.

Inside the frame was a photo of a family. Two tall, smiling individuals were posed in front of the Hammerlocke stadium, smiling like this was the best day of their lives. Between them, on their shoulders, was a small child with an unmistakable energy — and an unmistakable smile. Raihan. Piers caught himself smiling over the fact that his teeth had always been like that. He drew himself away, and back toward the room. It was full of Raihan’s personality, but still had an air of… emptiness. 

Where were his parents? Why was he living… _here_?He got so hung up on this that he didn’t notice Raihan popping his head out of the bathroom door.

“Okay, all cleaned up!” He called, before setting his eyes on Piers. “Oh, that’s…” His expression fell. “That’s my parents.”

Piers had figured as much. The sad tone of Raihan’s voice was enough to imply the worst.

“Uh, I cleaned up the bathroom,” Raihan repeated, cutting through the tension. “Let me get ya patched up.” 

Piers followed him into the small, brightly lit room, still thinking about the photo. As Raihan bandaged up his knees, he couldn’t help but wonder what was up with this living situation. “So you live _here_?” He asked. He knew it was a dumb question at this point, but he figured he’d get some details out of its answer.

“Mhmm,” Raihan answered, holding another bandage in his teeth. As he removed it to patch up Pier’s other knee, he explained further. “I’ve been here since I was a kid. Since… since my parents passed.”

Piers acknowledged hat this would be a weird time to talk about Raihan’s parents at length, with the kid crouched down around his knees and all, so he shifted the conversation a bit. “Didn’t they set ya up somewhere in the gym?” It was common knowledge that most of the Gym Leaders did have private residences inside their gyms.

Raihan shook his head. “They gym here is also a historical site, so adding more rooms means changing up the structure. Wasn’t really into that. Rose offered to build something though. Said he’s got plans for the place anyway.”

“Like what?” Piers had never trusted Chairman Rose, not that he’d really seen all that much of him. On the few occasions that he had, something about the guy was just… off. It made him uneasy.

Raihan shrugged. “Doesn’t matter I guess. I’ve been here for years, and I don’t mind staying, so it all works out.”

“That’s fair.” 

Piers noticed that Raihan had finished patching up his knees and thanked him. “Thanks for all that. I’ll head out and leave ya alone now,” he said, with a single, forced laugh.

“Nah, sit for a sec.” Raihan gestured towards the countertop. Piers looked at him, questioning, but did as he’d been asked. He didn’t really understand what was up until Raihan gently lifted his elbow away from his side and touched a piece of cloth to his upper arm.

He flinched back and wrapped his fingers around the cuts on his arm, frantic. “Hey. I—“

“It’s okay,” Raihan cut him off, as he pressed a firm, but comforting hand to his shoulder.“You’re fine. Just want to make sure you’re alright.”

Piers sighed and rolled his head forward to look at the blank wall ahead of him. He was embarrassed, and uncomfortable. Nobody had ever paid enough attention to him to even notice these marks, much less take care of them.

“So, how’s Marnie?” Raihan asked, in an attempt to redirect Piers’ focus.

“Oh, she’s doin’ fine.” He was surprised Raihan had remembered her name. It had been years, and he figured that meeting Marnie would have been such a small blip on his radar with everything else he had going on.

Raihan was still trying to get Piers out of his head, so he wasn’t about to accept that as the end of the conversation. “Is she any friendlier now?” he joked.

Piers laughed, somewhat amused by the fact that she actually really wasn’t. She was a shy and quiet kid around everyone except him, no doubt from observing how timid he had been in their own home himself. It’s not like he had a choice — Rich was pretty aggressive about having to deal with them at all. He was a “leave early, come home late” kind of guy, so Piers had been handling most of the housework, in addition to working multiple odd jobs to make it work out. To be honest, it wore him out.

He suddenly realized he hadn’t given Raihan an answer, and shrugged, as though that covered it. “We’re gettin’ along.” 

Raihan clipped together the strip of gauze he had wrapped around Piers’ arm, and patted it lightly. He walked around to stand in front of Piers.

“You wanna stay for a bit and talk?” 

Piers looked at him for a minute, more shocked than anything else, really. “Mhm,” he nodded, hoping he wouldn’t change his mind.

“Come back out though,” Raihan instructed. “It’s really bright in here.”

Piers hopped off the counter and followed Raihan back out to his room, taking a seat next to him on his bed. He looked back over towards the photo on the nightstand.

“Oh… yeah.” Raihan reached forward to grab the frame, pulling it back with him as he returned to lean against the wall. He shifted himself toward Piers to show it to him.

“You probably figured as much, but that’s my mom and dad,” he explained, smiling as he looked at the photo. “We had gone out to the Gym that day to watch a match.”

Raihan smile warmed at the memory of that day, before fading into sadness. Piers didn’t know what to say to pull him back.

Searching for something to change the tone of the conversation, he mused over some magazines spend across the floor by the foot of the bed, each of them with Raihan’s face plastered across their covers. “Wow, the media sure loves you, huh?”

“My dad was the head history researcher here, and my mom was a model, so I’ve kinda grown up in it.” He said that as though it was something casual.He watched Piers leaned over the edge of the bed to pick up a couple magazines, Raihan swore he caught him noting the dates.

“It never really let up,” he explained. “Even after my parents passed. It all just shifted to what I was up to.”

“You woulda been what? … _Six_?” Piers put together, partly from his own memory of when the tragedy struck, partly the from magazine covers and their headlines.

Raihan snorted, in a cynical kind of laugh. “ _Yeah_. I wasn’t really up to much of anything. That’s when I started battling. Gave them something to report on without me having to face it head-on.”

Piers looked up at him, clearly shocked by the idea of Raihan not being interested in being the center of attention. For how much energy the kid gave off throughout their whole Gym Challenge, he would have assumed that Raihan put himself in the spotlight on purpose.

“So… what happened?” Piers didn’t want to push too far, but he was curious.

“Pretty sure it was that weird… Dynamax energy… thing?” He waved his hand around, trying to find the right way to explain it. ”They got sick at the same time all those other people were, and it just got bad real fast.”

Piers understood exactly what he meant. 

The whole notion of controlled Power Spots and Dynamaxing at gyms was still relatively new, and it had gone horribly, _horribly_ wrong early on. After some early intervention from the then-Chairman to try to redistribute the energy spikes into predictable — profitable — areas, huge numbers of people had gotten unrecoverably sick throughout the region. There’d been some investigation into it in the decade since, but there wasn’t anything consistent to nail it down to. The illness seemed to affect people differently — a handful of people were able to fight it off for years, but others succumbed to it within days. Some towns were completely untouched, while others faced massive losses. Spikemuth had been one of the latter, despite being on the outskirts of Galar.

Piers thought back to how quickly Spikemuth crumbled in the aftermath, and how hard it had been to make any kind of comeback yet. Nearly half the town’s population had been wiped out by that mystery illness. A dozen shops had shuttered with no one left to run them. Most of the town’s kids were orphaned. “We got hit pretty bad by that,” he mentioned, looking off into a vague distance. 

Raihan looked at him, sympathetic. “Yeah, Hammerlocke lost a lot too. We rebuilt quick though, and a lotta people were coming in to help. We got lucky really.”

Piers couldn’t help but feel a bit jealous. Spikemuth was still struggling to recover after all this time, even with everyone doing the best they could.

“In a weird way though, it was kind of… nice?” Raihan shrugged. “I mean, not _nice_ , obviously…” he corrected. “But we were all coming together and taking care of each other. Like a bigger family almost.” He smiled a bit at the warmth of that thought, but it faded quickly. “Still feels like I’m going at everything on my own sometimes though.”

Piers could relate. “I know what that’s like.”

Spikemuth was nothing if not a big, rowdy family, and he loved that about the place. But he still felt like he always had too much on his plate, between trying to take care of Marnie, trying to handle all the little scuffles that popped up in town, and generally trying to be as helpful as he could without wearing himself out entirely.

“But you’ve still got your dad at least, right?” Raihan perked up a bit. He was always one to look on the bright side.

Piers sighed, annoyed, but knew he couldn’t be mad at Raihan. It was the same assumption everyone else made, and it’s not like the idea was completely farfetched. “Rich is my stepdad.” He took care to make this explanation more calmly than he did to most people.

Raihan watched him carefully, not quite understanding his point, but eager to learn more. 

“He’s…” Piers tried to come up with a good way to describe the guy, but was coming up short. Or rather, conflicted on which facet of his personality was the most intense. “He’s not great.”

He hadn’t ever really explained this story to anyone, but from all the chatter and gossip he heard about it throughout his childhood, he knew it pretty well. “Rich came in with this good-for-nothin’ gang years n’ years ago. Team Rage. He was their leader, and was in charge of all the trouble they were causin’ for us. They were just… mean. I remember ‘em always shouting and makin’ a scene everywhere.”

“…Wait.” Raihan had shifted to face Piers, invested in his story. “Isn’t Spikemuth kinda… already loud like that?” He asked, trying to be careful not to offend Piers. 

Piers laughed in response. “I know they act like a lot, but they mean well.” A few members of Team Yell had seemingly followed him from town to town during his Gym Challenge, and he had to admit, they probably seemed downright insufferable to everyone else. “That’s the difference between us an’ them though.They were just outright mean, goin’ around town makin’ everyone feel bad. Yell’s not like that. We’ve been workin’ hard nonstop, and it’s hard to keep goin’ sometimes. So they do the cheerin’.”

Raihan nodded, understanding the distinction, but was still confused. “So how did the leader of a rival gang end up getting to be your dad?”

“Stepdad,” Piers corrected again, but pressed on. “I didn’t know my real dad.” he shrugged this off lightly. It wasn’t exactly an uncommon thing in Spikemuth. “But my mom was sick, an’ got involved with Rich to keep me an’ Marnie outta harm’s way. Keep a roof over our heads and everythin’.”

It came to his attention that he’d been talking a lo. He paused to look over at Raihan, who was still giving him his full attention. He was a little baffled — no one had ever listened to him talk about anything for more than a minute or two, and it was starting to feel strange to hear his own voice for this long.

But Raihan was actually interested in all of this and wanted to hear more. “So what happened with all of that?” 

“Nothin’ much really.A bunch of ‘em joined up on our side. They just liked the yellin’ bit, and we do plenty of that on our own.” He chuckled a little. “With their main guy holed up with a local, the rest of ‘em jus’ …left.”

There was a bit of confusion still hanging in Raihan’s eyes — there was a part of this story that hadn’t added up yet. Piers sighed, knowing what was left to explain.

“My mom was real sick for years before that,” he explained. “I think havin’ Mar was a lot for her, and the stress of all the fightin’ around town really wore her out.” Piers bit his lip. He worried that he was being overdramatic, but how could he not be? “She died jus’ a few months after that.”

Raihan put it together slowly. Piers felt sick as he watched how his words had caused the wonder in his eyes to melt into nothing but sadness and pity. “So you lost her…”

“Right before our Gym Challenge.” Piers finished his sentence for him.

If he was being honest, being able to get out of Spikemuth and take in some fresh air all the way around the region had actually helped to take his mind off of it a bit. Not that it still didn’t sting to not have her around.

“God, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know…”Raihan dropped his whole head into his hands in guilt. 

“Hey, it’s not like ya would’ve. I didn’t tell ya.” Piers tried to be reassuring, but could all but feel Raihan dwelling on the way he’d never noticed. “’S’okay. Really.”

Raihan sighed. It seemed weird to him that Piers was just okay with him not noticing something like that. After the way he’d found him on the bridge, he didn’t want to make the same mistake again. He wanted to let Piers talk through the things that were weighing him down.“What was she like?” He asked.

Piers sighed and rested his head atop his knees, closing his eyes lightly to remember. “She was really nice. Everyone is Spikemuth’s kinda tough, but she was softer. At least t’ us.” He drew his knees in close to his chest, folding into himself.

“Yeah?” Raihan asked, placing a reassuring hand on Piers’ leg.

“Mhm.” He nodded softly. “She used to sing me n’ Marnie to sleep at night.” Piers pried up an edge of the bandage on his knee before smoothing it back down. After all these years, he knew he was starting to forget what her voice sounded like, and couldn’t bear knowing that eventually, he wouldn’t remember it at all. He did still remember the way her stark white hair brushed against his forehead when she kissed him goodnight, and the way her bright green eyes lit up the same way Marnie’s do. His own never shared quite the same gleam.

He looked up at Raihan, who was staring him down, listening intently. That same familiar brightness in his wild eyes. A big smile across his face.

“…What?” Piers asked. The kid looked like he’d just been told about a hidden treasure, not a literal tragedy. 

“You should sing to Marnie!” Raihan suggested enthusiastically. There he was, back on the bright side, much to Piers’ relief. “So she remembers.”

“…I do.” Piers buried his face into his knees, embarrassed. He couldn’t believe he just told somebody that.

Raihan was absolutely _beaming_. “That’s. So. _Cute_!” He smiled brightly, leaning in towards Piers.

Visibly uncomfortable, Piers pushed himself up off the bed, the adrenaline of his embarrassment carrying him halfway across the room. “Okay, alright, that’s enough o’ that. I’m headin’ out.”

Raihan adjusted himself to look at him, and his tone softened. “You can stay, if you want,” he offered.

“Nah, I should really get going. I’ve gotta get back before the sun’s up.” He looked around for a clock, but didn’t see one, and just hoped that was a good enough excuse. It wasn’t entirely a lie — he’d be in trouble if Rich got up before he got back.

Raihan looked up at him from his bed, his worry clear on his face. “I… I don’t wanna leave you out there alone.”

Piers saw him fidget with the end of his sleeve, feeling guilty. He’d been the one who dragged such a depressing energy in here with them. “I’ll be okay, I promise. I’m jus’ goin’ straight home.”

This seemed to cheer Raihan up a little. “Okay… do you have a phone?”

“Mhm”. Piers reached to his pocket before remembering he’d left his phone at home. “I do, I just don’t have it on me.”

Raihan hopped up, grabbed a marker from his desk, and before Piers had a chance to react, he’d scrawled his phone number onto his pale arm. “If you need anything, text me, okay?”

Piers laughed sleepily at the ridiculousness of the scene. Him, standing in the middle of a barely-lit room, with Raihan’s number written halfway up his arm in bright blue marker. “Yeah,” he agreed with a small smile.

“I’m serious,” Raihan pressed. “If you need me, please let me know.”

“I know,” Piers answered, meeting Raihan’s gaze to assure him that he was equally serious. “I will.”

Raihan stretched his arms over his head and yawned, the first sign he’d shown all night of even being remotely tired. “Text me when you get home.” 

“Will do,” Piers said, and headed out with a small wave.

* * *

Sure enough, when he got back to Spikemuth, under the gap in the main gate and through his bedroom window, Piers pulled out his phone from under his pillow and plopped down on his bed. He used the light of the screen to make out the numbers on his arm, typing them one at a time into the“To:” field. 

_”Home.”_ He sent his message, laying his head back into his pillow. He stared at the words for a minute, waiting for a response, before deciding he hadn’t said enough.

_”Thanks for talking to me_.” He typed quickly.

Raihan’s response came almost immediately. “ _of course! it was good to talk to you.”_

Piers thought about that statement for a bit. It had been nice. Maybe a bit painful, but it didn’t hurt nearly as much as thinking about all of those things alone.

_”Yeah, I agree.”_ Piers felt himself dozing off and didn’t want to leave Raihan hanging, especially since he’d been so worried about him leaving. “ _Goodnight_.”

_”Night!”_ Raihan’s text was followed by a big dragon emoji.

“That kid’s somethin’ else,” Piers muttered to himself as he rolled over to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Autocorrect kept changing Team Yell to Team Y’all so uh, yeehaw I guess.


	4. Chapter 4

As the chill of a night wind swept its way up the back alleys of Spikemuth and in through his open window, Piers curled a bit deeper into his bed. The town was mostly closed off, but decades of being exposed to the elements without repair had left it less than airtight. 

He didn’t mind. It was a comforting sound to try to fall asleep to.

He focused in on the way the pitches shifted as a firm breeze laced its way between the town's outer walls and the backs of every building, trying to pick out a melody that could draw him out of his head and into sleep.

He'd almost sorted out the chorus of it when a buzz from his phone broke its rhythm.

A message. He knew it was likely from the one person who ever texted him.

Even with all the running around and planning he’d been struggling to get things sorted out over the past few months, Raihan still shot him a message on a near-weekly basis to check in on him. To make sure he was okay. Though Piers rarely ever responded with more than a few words, he did appreciate it.

He wasn’t used to hearing from him this late at night though.

 _"hey are you up?_ " The chat bubble popped up under the single dragon emoji that Piers had set as Raihan’s contact name. He’d used it often enough that was like a signature of his, so Piers figured it suited him well.

 _"Yeah."_ He typed back. " _Everything okay?"_

_"yeah just need your help with sth"_

_What’s up?_ Piers watched the timestamp under his message flip from “Sent” to “Read: 1:24am.” He mulled over what Raihan could potentially be up to this late.

Instead of another text, he received a series of photos: pages of Raihan’s notebook with sketches scribbled over some old-looking photos that had been pinned to the pages. He pulled his phone closer to his face to try and make them out, but felt his phone buzz repeatedly in the meantime.

 _"can’t decide on uniforms for the gym."  
_ _"the old ones were just white, so I def wanna change them."  
_ _"blue and orange are the colors that are always used to represent the heros of galar so I think that would be really cool."  
_ _"but that also seems like a lot together, so idk."_

Raihan was borderline frantic about this, a demeanor that sat unsettlingly with Piers. While Raihan was typically a bit spacey and disorganized, he had always seemed to be confident about things. It was unsual for him to even ask for help.

Eager to help ease his mind, Piers looked over Raihan's sketches and references. The combination of colors did strike him as being a bit bold, but boldness was never something that bothered him. If anything, they stood out well, and the fact that they tied into something Raihan was so passionate about was a huge plus.

He was still trying to formulate this into a response as more messages came in:

_"heroes*"_

_"also the actual challenge? i have an idea but im unsure about it."  
_ _"or maybe i am?"  
_ _"idk can't decide if its stupid or not"_

Piers typed quickly to get his message sent before Raihan went off again: " _I really like what you’ve got, they look good. What’s your idea?"_ He could tell he was desperate of any kind of feedback.

 _"ok! so!"  
_ _"double battles with field conditions. to really make you strategize and actually be a challenge instead of just a bunch of random trainers to fight"_

Piers read his message over a couple of times to make sure he was envisioning it right. Hammerlocke’s previous Gym Leader, the one that they had both faced years ago, hadn’t really done much in the way of a Challenge — it had just been a series of six other trainers, each with Pokémon that represented the focus of each of the gyms before. He agreed that it felt a little arbitrary at the time. Even though any addition to that Challenge would have been an upgrade, he did really like Raihan’s take on it.

Raihan himself seemed quite a bit more divided about the idea.

 _"is that pretentious"  
_ _"what if people hate it?"  
_ _"and what about me do I have to only use one type???"_

_"ugh"_

Piers sighed. No matter how much he wanted to be able to just answer this for Raihan, it's not like he'd had any experience that would qualify him to. Still, they'd made their way through some pretty unconventional Challenges years ago, so he assumed there wasn't anything stopping him. " _I think you’re allowed to do whatever you want? Maybe. I’m not sure."_

 _"its so much to think about"  
_ _"and do"  
_ _"and what if everyone hates it and thinks I’m the worst gym leader on the whole circuit????"_

Piers sighed. He hated that Raihan was so convinced he would fail here. " _Hey."_ he sent, hoping to get Raihan to slow down for a moment.

_"what"_

Piers tried his best to get through to him. " _I think it's great, doesn't matter what other people think. Do you like it?"_

 _"yeah i do!!!"  
_ _"i know im acting like i hate it right now but I keep getting really excited about it."  
_ _"its different and actually challenging I hope"  
_ _"and I like reminding people about all the really cool history we have here!"_

The frequency of his messages hadn't changed, but the energy behind them certainly had.

His excitement made Piers smile. He could tell Raihan's heart was in this, just like it was in most things he did. " _That’s what really matters then, I think."_

_"you’re right. t_ _hanks sm piers"_

_"No prob, anytime."_ Piers ran his eyes back over Raihan's message. He couldn't tell if the surreal feeling he had was just from seeing his own name, or if the fact that he'd done something worth thanks.

Raihan didn't give him more than a minute to dwell on it.

_"oh hey wait"_

Piers rolled his eyes, though not annoyed. It's not like he was going anywhere. " _What’s up?"_

 _"there’s this presentation in hulbury in a few weeks and I can bring someone. you should come with me"  
_ _"the chairman's having a whole event to announce new gym stuff"  
_ _"including me"_

Piers rolled the idea over in his head. He was absolutely down to go spend time with Raihan for the first time in months. But the idea of having to spend that time around a bunch of other people in the Chairman's circle was not as appealing.

He let his response sit on the fence. _"Not saying no, but I do hate that sort of thing."_

_"i figured haha."  
"i'm not thrilled about. we can be miserable about it together haha."_

For whatever reason, the thought of them both hating this event warmed Piers up to the idea pretty quickly. " _I have to make sure its ok for me to leave, but I'm in if i can."_

_"helllll yeahhhhh"_

Piers couldn't help but chuckle over Raihan's contagious enthusiasm. It was such a shift from the energy that was attached to his first message. As he mused over the details of Raihan's personality, he got another message:

 _:ok i'm very tired but i'll send you details in the morning."  
_ _"night piers."_

Piers was already thinking about the best way to present his request to leave home for a bit. He took a breath in, resolving that he'd just deal with it in the morning. The wind had died down.

_"Goodnight."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Struggled quite a bit with the formatting on this chapter — I really hope it reads okay!
> 
> Anyways, Raihan would 100% ~~double~~ quadruple text you.  
> Buzz buzz, it’s Raihan again.


	5. Chapter 5

Piers walked tentatively into Hamerlocke's train station, looking around as he fussed over the way his shirt sleeve was rolled at his elbow. He and Raihan had agreed to meet up here and ride to Hulbury together. Raihan was standing at the gate, waiting for him, but something seemed off. Piers would have expected to find him chatting with either the ticket booth attendant or some random traveler, or even flipping through the travel guides to learn something new. 

But instead, he was just... standing there, looking lost as he kept looking off into disconnected vague distances.

He worried, briefly, but Raihan's attitude swept upward as Piers fell into his line of sight. “Hey hey!” He smiled as he waved a greeting. “I already grabbed tickets, so we should be all set for the next train that comes through.”

His tan jacket lifted at the edges, creasing around his hand as he moved to pull a pair of train tickets from a pocket of his slacks.“Round trip.”

“Oh sorry, I coulda paid for my own ticket.” Piers placed a nervous hadn’t at the side of his neck, unsure if his discomfort was because he hated the idea of things being done for him, or if he just wasn’t used to it. 

“Nah, it’s fine! I get free train tickets," he explained with a shrug. "Gym Leader perks, I guess.” 

Piers looked up from his crumpled sleeve, shaking himself out of his head and taking closer note of Raihan’s appearance instead. “You look different all dressed up.”

He did — Piers was used to seeing him in sportier clothes. It made enough sense, with him always constantly either training, or just being on the move in general. He’d never seen him in full-length pants before now, a fact that felt strange to consider.

Raihan chuckled. “In a good way, I hope?” 

“Oh, yeah. O’ course.” He looked down at his boots, deciding to confirm his earlier concern that his outfit was probably not appropriate for the occasion. To be fair, these were probably the closest thing to dress shoes that he actually owned.

“You look pretty sharp yourself.” Raihan slid his hands back into his pockets as he offered up the compliment.

“Thanks.”Piers continued to look at him. There was still something off about the way he was holding himself. His eyes kept drifting, getting caught in a faraway haze.

Raihan noticed him staring, and tipped his head, confused, before deciding that he knew what was up.

“Oh, you know what? I probably look really different without a hat.” he started, placing a hand to his forehead in an automatic illustration of the concept.

That wasn't it.

Raihan carried on anyways. “I figured this was a classier sort of thing, so I obviously had to skip it.” 

“Fair ‘nough," Piers agreed, deciding to let it go for now. Maybe he was just tired. Or bored — there wasn’t exactly much to do when waiting for a train that could come any minute now.

As the distant rumble of the approaching train picked up enough to hear, Raihan caught Piers fumbling with a section of hair that had fallen in front of his face. It was clear that he was trying to get it to fall a certain way, and it just wasn’t cooperating.

“I like what you did with your hair by the way.”

“Hm?” Piers froze, hand still lightly wound in his bangs. That statement seemed so... casual. Aside from those few pieces that always fell out at the front, he’d just thrown it up into a sloppy bun at the back of his head before running out the door, so he wouldn’t be late. He didn’t think it looked that great, to be honest.

“It suits you." Raihan cocked his head with a small smile.

A breeze blew through the station as the train pulled up beyond the turnstile.

“Uh, thanks." What was that supposed to mean?

Raihan took long strides ahead as the two boarded the train and found their seats, situated on opposite sides of a small table. The train took off soon after — they were the only passengers that had boarded at this stop.

“So how’d you manage to convince Rich to let you come?” Raihan asked, over the sound of the train. He’d taken to referring to the guy by name, the way Piers did.

Piers shrugged. He knew Raihan was looking for a more exciting answer than the one he had to offer. “The second I mentioned the Chairman, he was all about it.”

Raihan raised an eyebrow, propping his elbows up on the table as he tried to sort out what Piers’s stepdad could possibly be up to with the Chairman. "That’s… weird.” He'd always had concern or two about that kind of authority — the ones who never made their intentions clear. He’d spent the past several months dealing with Chairman Rose, who happened to be the champion of this same kind of secrecy. 

It hadn’t struck Piers as particularly benign either, not unlike most of the things the man did. Rich was always having meetings with undisclosed colleagues or working on papers that he refused to talk about. But there wasn’t really a way to get more information about it without starting a fight, so he just tried not to think about it too much. 

“I know, but I’m not about to go questionin’ it.” He shrugged again, turning his head to watch the hills pass by through the window. “Still have t’ be home by midnight, so.”

The rhythmic beat of the train track picked up as they rounded the corner to pass under Hammerlocke’s eastern bridge. Raihan watched, concerned, as Piers’ eyes dropped to his lap. He worked hard to pull his attention back to the present.

“So…” He leaned in further across the table, speaking softly to Piers as not to shock him. “How have things been in Spikemuth?”

Piers shrugged, without looking up at him. “Pretty much the same really. Nothin’ new.”

Raihan could tell this was a cop-out. He tried harder to pull Piers’ mind off the bridge looming overhead.

“Is Marnie doing alright?" He knew Piers always loved talking about his sister.

Piers perked up a bit, actually looking at Raihan to answer this time. “She’s alright actually. Helped her catch a Morpeko a few weeks back, so at least she’s got a little bit of company now when it’s just her ’n Rich.”

“That’s good!” 

“I mean…” Piers didn't really think he should be getting as much credit for this as Raihan was ready to give him. “They’ll warm up to anyone pretty quick, and there’s a whole mess of ‘em around town, so it’s not anythin—” 

“That’s really nice of you to do for her.” He looked across the table reassuringly as he cut Piers off.

Piers looked at him, a bit shocked. He’d never heard anyone call him “nice.” Not that he thought he wasn’t, but it wasn’t something that he’d known anyone else thought of him.

“Thanks,” he answered softly, his expression brightening a bit as they train made its way under the bridge, leaving it behind.

Raihan smiled warmly at him as he leaned into their conversation across the small table. He had set his phone on it, face down, to give Piers his full attention. Piers folded his arms and leaned against the table too, content to just be spending time with a friend.

As the train moved ahead are toward Hulbury, and Raihan’s gaze was getting increasingly more distracted, Piers decided to push further into his earlier concern. “Hey, you okay?”

“It’s just nerves.” He offered up a half-smile with his explanation. “I have to speak at this thing, and I’m not sure what it really involves. Like… do I actually have to be somewhere different for this, or can I just stay wherever you are? Nobody let me know beforehand.”

He’d let his eyes drift back toward the hills beyond the window as he felt himself rambling about his stress, but turned back when he realized Piers had gone quiet at the notion of him being elsewhere.

He pressed his forearms against the small table that separated them, leaning over it to close the gap. “There’ll be people there that you know,” he tried to reassure him.

“Yeah?”

“Well, you do know Bea and Nessa, at least a little bit.” He looked off as he considered the possibilities. “Sonia _might_ be there? She usually tags along with her grandma, but you know Magnolia comes and goes as she pleases really.”

They shared a laugh over this. Professor Magnolia _was_ notorious for only showing up when she felt like it — Piers had only seen her once in the entirety of his Gym Challenge. But she had every right to be selective in her attendance, being Galar’s lead — and only — Pokemon Professor. 

“The other Gym Leaders will be there too, of course. I’m sure that’s more weird for you than it is for me,” Raihan acknowledged, correctly. “But they are pretty friendly.”

He rested his head on folded hands as he tried to map out who else Piers would recognize, but really didn’t get a chance to do much thinking as a loud voice rang out front he far end of the train car.

“Hey!! Rai!!”

Piers jumped as he heard the shout behind him, quickly realizing who had been missing from Raihan’s list of familiar faces: _Leon._

Leon’s hands hit the table with a thud as he rushed over, and crashed into their space. His purple hair stuck out from all sides of his oversized hat. “Thought I heard you up here somewhere.”

Raihan barely had time to wave a small greeting before Leon had turned to Piers, scrutinizing him with a disapproving look on his face.

“What’s with you? You look like a Zigzagoon got stuck in a trash bag.”

Piers furrowed his brow over the comment, unsure whether he was actually offended by it or not. What he did know for sure, was that for the first time in his life, he suddenly resented the fact that he didn’t own anything that wasn’t just… black.

Raihan rolled his eyes. "You look fine,” he said, offering Piers a reassuring smile. “Lee, you gotta stop coming at people like that.”

Leon shrugged as he stood back up. "You two just run into each other or…?” 

Piers had to admit, form their wildly different appearance, they probably didn’t look too much like _friends_ even, much less people who were going to the same event. Not that Leon looked like a part of this little group either. He was literally wearing sports shorts and a cape. As the Champion though, that was probably something he could get away with.

“Piers is my guest for the event in Hulbury,” Raihan explained. “I really wanted to invite him out.” He looked back over at Piers with a friendly grin. “And I wouldn’t have gotten all my paperwork in on time if it weren’t for him.”

Leon shrugged it off, looking far less than impressed. Raihan and Piers exchanged a look, understanding that the entire concept of running a Gym was beyond him. Beyond photoshoots and press events, there weren’t nearly as many responsibilities that fell to a Champion.

An announcement rang through the train car's speaker: “Now approaching Hulbury Station. Please remain in your seats as we prepare for arrival.”

“Won’t be able to sit with you guys at the thing, sorry.” Leon explained, unprompted

Piers folded his arms on the table in annoyance. He hadn’t remembered asking him to sit with them, so it was a good thing that he wouldn’t be.

Leon continued with further explanation, that he also hadn’t asked for: “Gotta hang with the Chairman. Champion’s duty, you know.” He tossed his hair over his shoulder with a smug grin. He threw a hand up, waving behind him as he went to return to his seat. “Catch ya later!” 

Raihan caught the suspicious look Piers' had shot him as soon as Leon had left their car. “He’s not _that_ bad.”

“ _Sure_.” Piers crossed his arms and fell back into his seat. 

The two of them watched through the window as the train clicked to a halt inside the station.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the late update! Some personal stuff went down, but it’s all resolved now, so I'm looking forward to a more regular update schedule.
> 
> Also: I've officially mapped out the rest of this story, and a significant chunk of it is actually already written. I'm almost definitely looking at a total of 16 chapters here, so that's fun!


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More of a "Chapter 6A". It just got a bit long, and it felt like I should split it up for easier reading.

The Captain's Table wasn't the biggest of restaurants, but it was one of Galar’s most popular spots. Except tonight, the kitchen wasn’t operating. Chairman Rose had booked the place for the whole evening, strictly for this event.

Piers and Raihan had made their way to a far table, near a large window. As the sun set behind the silhouette of the Hulbury Gym, the lighting inside the restaurant dimmed to match.

They hadn’t been seated for more than a few minutes before Raihan raised a small wave to someone across the room. Piers turned and followed suit as he recognized Nessa. He knew exactly two things about her: 1. She was one of the trainers on their Gym Challenge, though she hadn’t made it particularly far. 2. She had taken over the Hulbury Gym sometime last year.

Her heels clicked against the floor as she came over to join them at the empty seat at their table.

“Glad you could make it!" Raihan smiled at her as he shifted to give her room to sit.

“Couldn’t miss it. You know I love a good _cocktail hour_.” She threw her hair over her shoulder as she sat down.

“Ah yes, going up to the bar for an orange soda, my favorite pastime.” He returned her sarcasm as he gestured to the glass in front of him.

“Oh, Piers!! Hi!” Nessa's face lit back up as she recognized him.

He waved back quietly, not knowing what to say.

“Anyways,” she continued, now including both of them. “If Rose wasn’t going to plan a whole dinner, couldn’t we have done this _literally anywhere else_?”

“You seem real eager to get out of Hulbury,” Raihan noted.

She shrugged.

Raihan dropped his smile, noting something off about her demeanor. “I haven’t heard from you in a while. What’s up?”

“Ugh.” Nessa rolled her eyes, placing a hand to her temple. “So there was that season wrap-up party a few weeks ago, right? I had _one_ drink, and Bea ratted me out to my parents. They took my phone. I’m also grounded, aside from _business_.”

Raihan laughed at the notion of Bea coming all the way out to Hulbury just to tell Nessa’s parents she was up to something. That was incredibly like her. It was also incredibly like Nessa’s parents to be strict about this kind of thing. “That sucks, I’m sorry.”

She shrugged it off. “Is it bad that I'm glad she’s not here?”

“Oh, is she not coming?" Raihan asked.

“Nah. She said something about training?” She shrugged again.

“Ah okay. Speaking of training, how are things going with the Gym?” Raihan asked. “Your first season go okay?”

Piers was impressed by how genuinely interested he was in the lives of everyone he spoke to — a feat he had yet to figure out himself.

“Yeah, mostly. Almost beat out Leon at the end of it, so that was something.” She was clearly annoyed that she hadn’t won the Champion Tournament, but not enough that it kept her from smiling over the thought that she’d come close.

“Nice work, bet he hated that.” Raihan chuckled. Leon was never one to enjoy being beaten. Not that he had been, at least not in an official match. “What do you mean, ‘mostly’?”

“Everyone’s been giving me drama about keeping the old Challenge,” she explained, propping her elbows up on the table and resting her chin on her hands in frustration. “It’s always something about it being too time-consuming, too much of a puzzle, too… _wet_.” She rolled her eyes over the ridiculousness of that last point.

Raihan chuckled, and Nessa followed suit with a soft laugh of her own. “Isn’t that _the entire point_?” he asked, still laughing. It _was_ a historically water-type gym, after all.

“Yes!” She nearly shouted, bringing a hand back down to the table. “It is!!”

“Well, do _you_ like it?” Raihan asked.

“I love it!” Nessa lit up as she answered enthusiastically. “It’s so awesome to see trainers work with their Pokemon to sort out which switches connect to what. It’s a different type of teamwork, and I think that’s really important.”

Raihan looked fondly at Piers before returning his eyes to her, with a warm smile. “Then that’s what matters, right?”

“Yeah!” she smiled brightly.

The two carried on their conversation as more people filed into the room. All the talk about leading a Gym was a bit beyond Piers, but he still made an effort to make out their words over the sound of the small crowd forming behind him, and made sense of them the best he could. Running a Gym came with an array of outside responsibilities too — it all seemed like a lot to expect from a bunch of 17-year-olds. He mulled over the fact that there’d been such a distinct shift towards younger Gym Leaders over the past few years.

His attention was drawn up from their conversation as an older man approached their table, holding a glass of wine.

“Oh my god _thank you_ ," Nessa whispered loudly as Kabu quietly placed the glass in front of her. He smiled, and pointed at Raihan before standing up slowly.

“I’m good, but thanks." he waved off the offer with a small smile.

“Piers!” Kabu spoke excitedly, bowing to greet him. “It’s been a while. It’s nice to see you!”

“You too, sir." Piers responded with a polite half-bow of his own.

“How have you been?" Kabu’s delivery was… intense. Like most things he did.

Piers was caught off guard by the question. “Uh.. okay I guess?” he lied.

Kabu nodded, understanding what Piers hadn't said. “Remember that the sun still exists beyond the storm.” he recited, placing a firm hand on Piers’ shoulder.

“Uh… thanks.”

Kabu pointed at Nessa's drink, then back to Piers in what was likely the most conspicuous way he could have.

Piers laughed as he shook his head. “I’m alright, but thanks.”

Kabu nodded. The lights had dimmed, indicating that the presentation was about to begin. He began to take his leave, but paused to smile back at Raihan. “Congratulations again, Raihan, I’m looking forward to fighting alongside you and your team.”

“Thank you sir!” Raihan beamed at Kabu as the latter left with a dramatic salute.

Nessa, both hands wrapped lightly around the glass that now sat in front of her, noticed a confused look on Piers’ face. “Kabu’s basically the ‘Cool Dad’ of the group,” she whispered before taking another sip of her drink. “As long as he’s around to make sure we don’t do anything stupid, he doesn’t care if we drink at these things.”

The overhead lights dimmed further, quieting the lingering conversations as spotlights clicked on around a small platform that had been set up at the front of the restaurant.

“Friends and loved ones from across our region, we’re gathered here today to commemorate another gleaming representation of the unwavering spirit of Galar’s shining youth!” He was nearly shouting into the microphone positioned at the front of the restaurant, as though he were addressing a packed tournament stadium, not a room of roughly thirty people.

Piers had only ever seen Rose in front of an audience. It seemed exhausting to maintain such an eccentric manner all the time. He had always assumed it was just for the camera.

He leaned across the table, being careful to keep his voice down. “…He always talk like that?”

“Yes” Raihan and Nessa answered at the same time, turning toward him at him briefly with exhausted nods.

“Well, most of the time.” Raihan corrected, eyes fixed back on Rose in the spotlight, though not really watching him. “He drops it if he’s mad.”

Piers wondered what Rose would have gotten mad at Raihan for, after he’d spent weeks seeing him put in an insane amount of effort to revitalize his Gym. He noticed Nessa looking at him, concerned, likely wondering the same.

Raihan shrugged it off when they both looked at him for an explanation.

Rose continued his heavily-scripted monologue. “As many of you know, the former Gym Leader of Hammerlocke stepped down from his position following the past Challenge season.” A few small claps arose from the crowd as even fewer heads turned to face the older gentleman sitting at the back of the room.

Rose continued his speech in light of the subdued response. “In his place, we've appointed a Hamerlocke local, full of drive and passion. I’m proud to formally announce your newest Gym Leader, Raihan!” He swung his arm out, gesturing grandly.

“Whoo!” Nessa shouted over the room's applause.

Raihan rolled his eyes play as she and Piers stifled a bout of laughter.

“Raihan," Rose addressed him directly as a small spotlight found its way over to him. “I trust you’ve completed your preparations for the transformation of the Hammerlocke Gym Challenge?”

Raihan stood up, smoothing out his shirt with his hands before speaking. He took a deep breath.“Yes, I’ve been working hard to craft a Gym environment that truly honors the history of Galar, while implementing a varied battle style, encouraging Challengers to prove themselves in a truly challenging final test before taking on the Champion’s Tournament.“ It was incredibly evident that he’d rehearsed this.

“Excellent!” Rose exclaimed. “Thank you for your investment in improving the quality and authenticity of our treasured Gym Challenge!”

“Ladies and gentlemen, your newest Gym Leader, Raihan!”

Raihan sat down quickly, with an awkward wave over his head.

“Faaaancy.” Nessa teased, nudging his arm as he settled back into his seat.

Raihan chuckled as he rolled his eyes in response. “I was up _all night_ practicing that,” he concluded, with a light yawn.

The rest of the presentation went pretty predictably: a few notes of general Galar news that wasn’t actually new to anyone, an update on the Dynamax research going on at Rose Tower, and an announcement of the date for the kickoff of the next Gym Challenge. 

The three of them sat, lightly chatting amongst themselves, until Chairman Rose finally concluded his speeches and brought the event to a close.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In an unexpected turn of events, Chapter 7 is also up now!  
> I'll be back next Monday with more regular updates!


	7. Chapter 7

The three of them walked together along Hulbury's paved sidewalk, towards landmark lighthouse. Nessa had been adamant to show them something out here.

“Okay, so it’s right over here.” Nessa said, hopping onto a specific tile on the walkway before leaning onto the railing. “You’re close enough to get that glow from the Gym, but you can see the stars really well from here too.”

“Oh wow, yeah…" Raihan's voice was soft as he got lost in the view.

“That’s your town over there, right?” Nessa asked, turning towards Piers as she pointed across the water to the structure in the distance.

He nodded in response. From the outside, Spikemuth looked calm and quiet — distinctly different than the way he had always known it to be.

“I’ve never been," Nessa continued. “Is it nice? It seems kinda scary if I’m being honest.”

Piers chuckled at her perception of Spikemuth — it was one that most people who hadn’t been there shared, but it was way off the mark. “It’s a good place, just a little rough around the edges. We’re workin’ on it.” He looked back at its walls reflecting across the bay. “There’s a lot o’ good people livin’ there.”

“Well I know _that_!" she smiled as she nudged his arm. He looked back at her, flustered.

A silence settled between them, though not as awkward as the first one they’d shared.

Nessa leaned past Piers to look at Raihan. He'd been a little too quiet, and she’d noticed his absurdly firm grip on the rail in from of him.

“Hey Rai," she led in softly. "Are you okay?"

He shook it off, pushing off from the rail. "Yeah, I’m good, just really tired.” He looked weakly back across the water. “Haven’t really slept much lately.”

Piers turned, leaning his back against the rail as he looked up at Raihan. He was certainly no stranger to sleepless nights himself. As he considered all of the factors that plagued his own insomnia, he grew worried about what had been keeping Raihan up.

He looked him dead in the eye. "What's got ya?"

Raihan quickly crafted and forced a smile, and shrugged, hoping they would just let it go.

Piers sighed. There was no way he was just going to let Raihan take this home with him and deal with it alone. “No, seriously,” he pressed. “What’s goin’ on?”

Shocked by the immediacy of Piers' tone, Raihan buckled, and decided that honesty was the best policy.

“I just…" he started, anxiously. "What if I don't do a good job of this? What if I’m a shit Gym Leader and I just let everyone down? What if this isn’t even what I’m supposed to be doing?”

“Hey.” Nessa cut in amidst his rapid-fire doubts. “It makes you happy, right?” She watched him hesitate. “Not the outside input, just the idea of having battles and all that.”

“And you're so eager to bring the history into it. To help people learn about that side o’ things.“ Piers reminded him. “You’re real passionate ‘bout that, too.”

Raihan’s anxiety softened as he looked back to his friends, with a more genuine smile this time. “Yeah,” he breathed. “It does.”

“That’s really what it comes down to.” There was a soft glow in Nessa’s eyes as she spoke. “You’ve gotta put yourself in positions where you get to do what makes you feel alive.”

Raihan smiled. He wasn't one hundred percent convinced, but he _was_ a lot more at ease. Even if everyone else in Galar ended up thinking he was a garbage Gym Leader, he could tell these two never would.

“Do you feel like that's what you're doing, Ness?" He wasn’t challenging her, just checking in. Some things are easier said than done.

“Yes!” Her eager smile caught the moonlight's glow as she happily arched over the rail.

Piers felt a certain stress rising in the back of his throat before either of them turned to him. Standing out here in the cool air of this night in Hulbury was the most “alive” he’d felt in years, if he was being honest with himself. And he’d only wound up here because of Raihan’s invitation, not his own decisions.

“What about you, Piers?" Nessa was so optimistic. He hated the idea of dragging his own melancholy into this otherwise uplifting moment.

He looked away. “Um… I—“

He was cut off by the sound of a too-familiar voice calling out to them. “Hey! I was wondering where you three had run off to!”

After their run-in on the train, Piers wouldn’t have thought that he’d ever find himself so relieved to hear Leon’s loud voice.

“What’s up short stuff?" Leon greeted Nessa as he punched her in the shoulder.

She sneered back at him. In her heels, she was almost his height. Plus, she had an edge on him now.

“Bold way to address someone who almost took your title, don’t you think?” She crossed her arms as she stepped up to close the gap between them. Her lips turned upwards into a feisty smirk.

“Oh come on, you weren't even close!” Leon laughed out loud in her face.

“Listen, If I could've gotten my Dreadnaw up against that Charizard…“ She squared up to Leon, her competitive spirit sparkling in her eyes. “…We would’ve had him down in a _minute_ , and you know it.”

Their bickering was cut short by the ring of a distant bell.

There was a fair bit of distance between Hulbury and Motostoke, but the sound of the latter’s clock tower could still be heard across the night. Nessa bit her lip idly as she stood still, counting its chimes.

She scrunched up her nose as it hit its ninth toll. “Shit,” she cursed under her breath. “I’m supposed to be home by now.”

“Bye!” She called back to them with a wave as she ran. “It was good to see you!”

Raihan, Piers, and Leon all waved back as she darted up the curved sidewalk.

“…Is she running in those heels?” Raihan asked, more impressed than anything else.

“Looks like it." Piers answered. He kept an eye on her — mostly to make sure she didn’t snap an ankle — as Leon shifted his focus to Raihan.

“So, you up for a match? to show me what you're made of now that you’ll get another chance for an upset?” There was a hint of desperation in his challenge. He wanted to know he could win, and he needed to know that _right now_.

Piers watched Raihan’s weak attempt to brush off the taunt with a forced laugh and a turn of his hand. “Come on man, it’s late. I’m tired.”

But Leon seemed eager to egg him on. “Awww, what? Don’t think you can beat me?”

Raihan sighed heavily. That wasn’t the case — he’d just been up all night, now quickly approaching a full day without sleep. He was simply too exhausted to do much else before getting a chance to rest. He looked towards Piers, more out of instinct than anything else.

Piers raised an eyebrow at Leon as he stepped closer to him with crossed arms. “What’s your deal?”

His attitude was different than Nessa’s had been. Though a bit irritated, she had approached Leon with an expression that carried her irritation, but still maintained her standard friendly gleam. She had been firm, but still good-natured.

Piers, however, wasn’t playing around.

Beneath his furrowed brow, he wore a signature sneer that delivered both annoyance and contempt. It was a look that made it clear that he didn’t have time to deal with anyone’s shit, but also that he wouldn’t hesitate to.

He narrowed his eyes as he snarled at Leon. “Leave him alone.”

“Damn, _okay_.” Leon backed off just as quickly as he had tried to start something.

A strange tension hung between them.

As usual, Raihan was the one to break it. "It's probably a good time for us to head back too.”

* * *

They didn't speak for most of the train ride back, though Raihan did offer Leon a small wave as he and Piers stepped back into Hammerlocke Station.

Raihan stopped Piers as they stepped out into the dark street outside the station. He noted that the latter had unrolled his sleeves to combat the cooler chill of the air as it got late. “Hey. You don’t look like a Zigzagoon, for the record.”

A smile flashed its way across Piers' face as he lifted an arm to loop a finger around the single elastic that had held his hair in place all night. He smugly lifted an eyebrow as he pulled it loose. “You sure about that?” he asked with a wide smirk, and the start of a laugh.

There was something delightfully chaotic about the way his hair had landed around his face, with a steady crease causing black and white ends to jut out in a hundred different directions. Each flash of moonlight off of the lighter sections of his hair only amplified the effect.

Raihan couldn’t help but laugh.

Maybe it was the exhaustion. Maybe it was the fact that this dork and his multicolored mess of hair did admittedly look a whole lot like a pokémon.

Their shared laughter cut loudly through the quieted side street, echoing off the stone buildings that surrounded them. Neither of them particularly minded the noise they were making.

But someone did. They both froze as a voice came crashing through a nearby window. “Hey! Keep it down, or I’m coming out there!”

“Sorry!” Raihan called back to the angry stranger, as the two of them stifled a few final laughs.

“Thanks for coming out," Raihan spoke softly to Piers. The genuine appreciation in his voice was clear.

“O’ course. Thanks for the invite." Piers nodded back as the silence settled in around them.

Neither of them had been looking forward to leaving. But a general understanding arose that they both needed to get back home.

“Alright, get some sleep," Piers directed. "I’ll get goin’ I guess.”

Raihan sighed softly as Piers folded his arms behind his head and strolled calmly, unbroken, across the east bridge and headed home.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Hey remember that "Abuse" tag that's just been chillin' in the tags up until now? This is where it comes into play.**

A different breed of nightfall had made itself at home inside Spikemuth's walls — rather than falling heavily over homes and into alleyways like it did most nights, it had nestled in warmly, still stirring with faint sparks of vitality.

Piers smirked, knowing that he was the one who had shown this feeling the way in.

“Hey man, great show tonight!" Piers smiled at the compliment from his friend and neighbor. He waved modestly as he stood outside the door, ready to head home.

It _had_ been a great show. Out of the five sets he'd played so far, tonight's was definitely something special. It had been a lot of work, planning, rehearsing, setting up for a performance. But it always was, and it always paid off. The lights fell just right. The lyrics — _his_ lyrics — fell on just the right beats for maximum impact. He’d struck a chord with the audience, and that shared energy was a feeling he could never forget.

It felt freeing to be up on stage, unafraid to let his words pulse through the crowd, knowing that they resonated with others too.

Before his first entrance into that spotlight just a few short months ago, he never would have thought he’d enjoy something so… loud. So outward. So self-indulgent.

But that conversation he’d had with Nessa and Raihan back in Hulbury stuck with him.

_“Do what makes you feel alive.”_

This was it. This was the thing that made him feel alive.

He loved every moment of it, every time. The lights, the music, the energy from the crowd. The feeling of being involved in it all.

The way that feeling lingered for hours after the lights went down and he stepped off the stage.

He looked up, reveling in the warm glow of the street lights one last time for the night before stepping in through his own front door.

He tossed his bag to the floor, where it landed with a light thud, guiding the black leather of his jacket over the top of it strategically to ensure it wouldn’t fall to the floor. He was careful not to make too much noise this late.

A figure shifted in the light of a small lamp across the room.

“Oh, hey.” It was late enough that he hadn’t figured Rich was still up. He’d been hoping he wasn’t.

The man stood, taking a moment to shoot a glare across the living room before making his way to the door to confront Piers. He didn’t return the greeting.

“Where’ve you been all night?” he started.

Piers dodged his sightline as he explained. “Jus’ swung by Jay’s place t’ change and hang out for a bit.” This was mostly the truth. Yeah, he _had_ changed into sweats and a clean shirt — that much was obvious. But he’d also hung around for a bite to eat and couple drinks with his friend, and showered there. And sure, they’d talked some shit about Rich, but what did it matter? Piers knew the man could get aggravated about any of these minor details, so he left them out.

“I’m just gonna go up and go t' bed." Piers refused to make eye contact as he tried to slide around him. He didn’t get a chance to make his way before Rich latched on to something to lay into him for.

“Ya really couldn’t find someone better to hang out with?” Rich asked condescendingly, folding his arms as he finally stood still in front of Piers.

“Jay’s a perfectly fine guy. What’s the problem?” Piers flicked his eyes upward to address him as he instinctively pushed his own sleeves to his elbows.

“The _problem_..” Rich started, cocking his head and closing off what little space was left between himself and Piers. “…is that you already go about making’ a whole scene, _constantly_ , and then you go and get all cocky about it, thinkin’ you can just stay out late with whatever hooligans you want?“

Something in Piers snapped. “Y’ know what?” he cut back, letting his anger rise and lead him into this. Rich could talk shit about him any day, and it would barely faze him. The constant dismissal, endless undermining, and near-daily accusations had all become commonplace for him after all these years. He’d just let it happen.

But dragging people he cared about into it crossed a line.

“Don’ talk about my friends like that.”

His stepfather stood nearly a half-foot taller than him and had a much more solid build, but Piers squared up without hesitation. He looked him dead in the eye with a combination of his own signature darkness, and what was — without question — _a threat_.

“Oh?” Rich stood in front of him, arms crossed, chin upturned. Piers wasn’t the only one who had chosen to pick this fight. “You really wanna call those good-for-nothin’s _friends_ , don’t ya?” A sick smile had crawled its way across his face. “We both know they don’t give a shit about ya. Why would they?”

Piers hadn’t _decided_ to swing a fist straight towards Rich’s chest, but in the blur of his anger, it had just… happened. But he never felt it land. Anger morphed into fear as he became aware of Rich’s hand gripping his forearm, _hard_.

“So you wanna throw punches, huh?” Gripping harder, cutting into the skin of Piers’ arm with his nails, he shoved the boy against the exposed brick wall behind him. Piers felt its sharp edges tear into the skin on his shoulder, but it just egged him on further. He snarled back, more than ready to fight. He pushed himself back to his feet off the wall, waiting to make another move.

He wasn’t about to get a chance though.

“Yeah, I can play that game too.”

Piers was thrown back to the wall by the force of Rich’s fist across his jaw, backed by the strength of a grown man, against his own scrawny frame. Rich was wearing the same hideous ring he always did. It left a shallow, but definite cut around the bottom of Piers’ chin.

Piers rolled his head back against the wall. “Fuck!” he sputtered. “Stop actin’ like ya know a damn thing about _anyone_ here.“ He yelled, knowing that he was including himself in this statement. “I get it, alright? Ya hate all of us! What am I s’posed to do about it?”

He stood, panting, noting that Rich had once again closed the gap between them.

Rich was looking straight at him, but he couldn't quite place the look in his eyes. It was softer than it had been before, and almost… sad?

“Oh, I’m sorry.” Piers felt the man's rough hand slide across the right side of his cheek. Piers looked back at him, confusion running rampant through his mind. Did he… mean that? Coming from anyone else, it would have been a comforting gesture. But this wasn’t something he’d ever known to expect in this house.

He paused, his brow buckling lightly as he scrambled to process the situation. Rich had never been sorry for anything. Why would he start now?

He felt tension rise in his throat, as he began to flip through the possibilities. Was he just being stupid? What if he was wrong?

It all made sense as the flare of frenzied rage flashed back into Rich’s eyes. He _was_ wrong.

“But if you hadn’t gotten smart with me, I wouldn’t have had to do that.”

Piers rolled his eyes as his heart sank to his stomach, resentful that he’d come so close to letting that apologetic tone get to him, and knowing full well what was about to come next.

He didn’t have time to process the feeling of the side of his head being slammed into the brick behind him. Just the pain that struck through his head, streaking white flashes across his vision.

In shock and pain, he slipped to the floor. He sat there in the silence that fell over the room for what felt like an eternity. His hand reached up into his still-damp hair to assess the spreading pain at the side of his head.

His dizziness compounded as he caught sight of the blood on his fingertips as he pulled his hand away.

By the time his vision unblurred, nothing had changed. Rich was still standing over him. Piers felt small under the weight of his anger.

“Get the fuck out of my house,” Rich spoke sharply.

The words hit Piers in a flurry, and didn’t quite register.

“I… _what_?” Piers shook his head as though it would help shake the pain and his fear back into their respective corners of his head, so he could process the statement. “I’m jus’ gonna go up an’ go to bed.” he breathed, defeated. He could hear the fearful wavering in his own voice, and silently prayed that Rich hadn’t heard that weakness too.

He pressed his hand to the wall behind himself to stand, only to be halted by Rich’s foot kicking straight into his side, causing him to crumble once more.

Rich sneered down at him. “Get. Out.”

The instruction was crystal clear.

Piers shakily used all his energy to get himself out the door, not bothering to look back.

* * *

He fumbled with his phone as he stood just outside Spikemuth's gate, flipping it over in his hands repeatedly before swallowing hard and making a call. He listened to it ring as he looked up at the sky, trying to swallow his fear.

A soft click at the other end of the line let him breathe for the first time in a full minute.

“Hey man, what’s up?” Raihan was clearly trying to sound casual — like it wasn’t 3am, and like Piers had bothered to get in touch at all in the past few months — but the puzzled tone of his voice still came through loud and clear.

Piers hung on this for a minute, suddenly feeling like the biggest asshole on the planet. It’s not like he’d been ignoring Raihan, he was just busy. Planning shows and rehearsing for them ate up a lot of time, and there just hadn’t been all that much time to catch up with him.

He considered just hanging up and taking care of this himself. He figured he didn’t need to be bothering Raihan over this; it’s not like it hadn’t happened before. He’d just clean himself up a bit and—

“Piers?” The concern that filled Raihan’s voice shook Piers out of his doubts. As much as it bothered him to be so needy, he knew he didn’t want to be alone right now. Not like this.

“I...” Piers rolled around the idea of just apologizing for bugging him and calling it a night outside the walls of Spikemuth, but couldn’t get much of a cohesive back-out plan together in the mess of dull pain constricting his brain. He ran his free hand through his hair in frustration, wincing as his fingers grazed over the wound on his head.

“I… I need help,” he admitted, hating the sound of his own voice saying those words.

“Of course. You need me out there?” Raihan’s patience never failed to astound Piers, but he was grateful for it. He didn’t want to make Raihan come all the way out to Spikemuth just because he’d mouthed off, but he needed someone who understood what he was up against.

He mulled over the scratches on his arm, feeling the pain swell up across his body against the cool breeze of the night.

“...yeah.” The word barely made its way past his lips.

“Cool cool, I’m on my way right now.” He wasn’t lying — even over the phone, Piers had heard the rustling of him getting up and pulling his sweatshirt over his head.

“Catch ya in ten — want me to stay on the phone?”

“N-no, that’s okay.” It wasn’t even a thought that occurred to him honestly.

“Okay, that’s fine. I'll be there real soon." The tenderness in Raihan’s voice came as much-needed comfort to Piers.

“Alright,” he spoke quietly.

“Hang in there, okay?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> piers bb i am _sorry._


	9. Chapter 9

Those ten minutes felt like ten hours.

And somewhere in them, Piers decided that he hated himself for bothering Raihan to come out here in the middle of the night and take care of his ass. It was his own fault, he figured. He should take care of himself.

But he’d already sent out the call. All he could do now was wait for him to show up. He leaned back against Spikemuth’s outer wall and tried not to think of how he’d handle it.

In dull frustration, he picked at the edges of the scrapes on his arms, until he saw a familiar silhouette become clearer in the distance.

“Hey hey, what’s up?” Raihan's words were casual as he strode across the grass, but he couldn't mask the worried look on his face as he came closer to Spikemuth’s front gate.

Any attempt he’d made to do so melted as got closer, and realized the state Piers was in.

“Piers...” Raihan’s face fell fully as he stepped close. “Are you okay?” It was clear that Piers was having a rough night.

Piers rolled his head as he pushed himself back to his feet, faltering lightly but refusing to answer.

“I need a fuckin' drink. Come on in.” He barely made eye contact with Raihan before ducking under the gate — he'd left it open a few feet when he came out. He waited silently for Raihan to pass under behind him before lowering its edge back to the ground.

Raihan stood still for a moment while his eyes adjusted to the change in light. Even with the neon glow that hovered around nearly every building, the place still felt inherently dark. For every soft halo of pink or purple along the street, there was an accompanying alleyway that faded sharply to black. Any number of dark things could be down those paths. The thought crept up his spine as they continued up an empty street that was still wholly unfamiliar to him.

He took a deep breath and shook himself out of it. Their uncertainty was intimidating, but they weren’t in those alleys right now.

He knew that Piers had called for help, and that’s all he needed to know. That’s what he’d come all the way out here for.

He pressed on, following Piers’ footsteps as he walked quietly down the empty street ahead.

As they passed under the glow of the Pokémon center, Raihan caught sight of the torn shoulder of Piers’ shirt. He hadn’t been made aware of any of the details, he’d just rushed out as soon as Piers called for help.

It all seemed like so much, and Piers' attitude about it was making him nervous.

“Look, I don’t know what happened, and you don’t have to tell me, but —“

“What?” Piers has stopped short enough in his tracks that Raihan nearly ran into him. He’d whipped around to look up at him, confused. He’d been expecting that Raihan would be frustrated, mad even, about the lack of explaining he’d done and his obvious lack of interest in rectifying that. But here he was, claiming he didn’t even need to know.

Raihan couldn’t help but notice how worn down Piers looked. Sure, he’d always had those same deep-set eyes that lent themself pretty well to always making him look incredibly tired, but even under the brightest halo of neon Spikemuth had to offer, there was no light in them.

Just a heartbreaking, desperate panic that he’d seen there before.

He took a deep breath, stabilizing himself before proceeding as gently as he could manage. “I said you don’t have to tell me what happened.” He looked Piers directly in the eye. He could tell this was a novel concept to him. “If it’s not something you’re able to talk about, that’s okay.”

Piers’ eyes rolled off to his side as he struggled to explain the state his mind was in. “I... I’m still… comin’ down off it.” He hated to have to admit this, and he hated how much he’d stumbled over this cop-out of an explanation, but he didn’t have much else to say. Everything was still spinning around inside his head faster than he could keep up with it.

Raihan nodded in understanding, but continued on with the rest of his statement. “All I need to know is that you’re okay.”

A tense silence fell between them.

“… Are you okay?” he pressed.

Piers looked up and off into the distance away from him. All he had to offer in response was a weak shrug. He didn’t know. And up until just a few minutes ago, he didn’t _care_.

Maybe he still didn’t.

Despite Piers’ growing detachment, Raihan stayed latched onto this. “Do you want to hang here for a bit and talk it out?” he offered.

Piers had already turned and picked up his stride by the time he responded.

“No.”

Raihan sighed, and resigned himself to just follow Piers, wherever it was that he was going. A number of questions filled his mind as Piers swung open a door beneath what was clearly a neon bar sign, but he figured now wasn’t the best time to ask. Piers seemed to know what he was doing.

The place was actually pretty big, but empty aside from from one woman, a bartender, clearly bored from the lack of business. She seemed distracted as she leaned onto the bartop, watching the street through the large windows at the front of the place.

Her attention was piqued at the sound of Raihan clicking the door shut as two of them filtered in. Her weariness softened into a smile as she caught sight of Piers.

“Hey there, rockstar.” She extended a friendly wave.

Piers shot back a small, weak wave of his own as a greeting.

“And rockstar’s friend," she smirked with a nod as she saw Raihan behind him.

“Raihan.” He introduced himself briefly, with a cordial wave over the back of Piers’ head.

“Tera.” The woman smiled brightly before wiping down a spot at the end of the bar for the two of them. “Nice to meetcha!”

Raihan kept a steady eye on Piers as they both took their seats. As badly as he wanted to know what was going on so he could try to help, Piers had already made it clear that he wasn’t ready to relive whatever had happened just yet. Still, keeping him talking seemed like the best solution to keep him from getting too far into his head.

And Tera had just offered up a particularly interesting bit of information he could work from.

“So what’s this about ‘rockstar’, hm?” he asked.

“Wait, he hasn’t told ya?" Tera cut in, shocked that he hadn't heard. “Piers is somethin’ of a local celebrity. Been puttin’ on shows every few weekends for the past couple moths now.”

Raihan’s signature enthusiasm nearly spilled out of him as he spun to look at Piers. “No way! Really?”

He was relieved to hear the soft laugh from Piers that confirmed this.

“Yeah, ‘ve done a couple shows now." A small smile found its way across Piers' face as he explained.

Raihan matched his quiet grin. "That's awesome." He turned back to Tera. “So I take it you’re a pretty big fan then?”

Her bright smile was a “Piers and I go pretty far back — I used to babysit him and his kid sister.”

After how unexpectedly cold Piers had been to him since he’d gotten here, Raihan was relieved that she was so eager to chat.

“And now Marnie’s pretty good friends with her daughter.” Piers explained. “How are they, by the way?”

After his show, Marnie had headed over for a sleepover with Tera’s daughter. In retrospect, he was incredibly relieved that she wasn’t at their house tonight.

“I just popped home a bit ago, they’re painting each other’s nails, putting stickers on everything, standard little girl shit.” She laughed as she shook her head over the frivolity of it. “Full of energy as always, dunno how they do it.”

“Heh, you can say that again,” Piers agreed, as he stretched his arms across the cool surface of the bar, resting his head on top of them.

Tera smiled as she set a freshly-washed glass in front of Raihan. "Can I getcha somethin’?” She looked at him expectantly.

“Oh uh,” he stammered, caught off guard. Between Piers' unexpected late-night call, and the worrying state he’d met him in, he had built up enough concern to completely forget why they’d come in here in the first place.

“I’m not old enough to…” he trailed off, getting hung up on how dumb this probably sounded.

Tera lowered her eyes to meet Raihan’s. “Sweetie.” She stopped him with a smirk, and looked straight at him as she repeated herself. “What can I getcha?”

Piers, head still atop his arms, let out a light chuckle at his awkwardness. There wasn’t really a set drinking age in Spikemuth, and there hadn’t been for years. If you looked like you could use a drink, they’d give you one, and that was that. Piers was admittedly a little too familiar with this fact.

Still flustered, Raihan fumbled for an answer. “Uh, whatever... is fine.”

Tera chuckled, grabbing her go-to bottle by the neck from a shelf on the wall, and filling his glass. As she spun back around to address Piers, she paused. Her tone shifted dramatically as she lifted his hand lightly into hers.

“Piers, hon…” With a damp towel, she wiped the blood off of his fingertips before shifting to tend to the scrapes on his other arm. He sat up sightly, and held his breath as Tera wrapped a small piece of cloth around the small series of wounds.

He kept a careful eye on her as she gently pulled his chin up to investigate.

“That actually looks like it’ll be jus’ fine,” she spoke quietly as she lightly tipped his head from side to side to confirm.

Piers nodded in agreement. It stung like hell, but he knew it would heal. The smaller cuts always did.

“You should be all set.” Her small smile was clouded by concern, but her softness was comforting nonetheless.

“Thanks.” Piers returned her smile gratefully. The pain at the side of his head was growing, but he was determined to keep quiet about it.

Raihan had been sitting quietly, looking on sadly as Tera patched Piers up. Despite the evident weight of the situation, and how little he knew about it still, he was at least relieved to know that Piers had someone nearby who could take care of him when he hurt himself.

He didn’t see her next question coming.

“So was it you or him?”

Piers labored over a small succession of heavy breaths before steeling himself enough to answer. “ _Him_.”

“ _Again_?” Tera shot Raihan a quick apologetic look for needing to focus on Piers in that moment.

He wasn’t particularly concerned about that. He stared into his drink, angrily connecting the things he’d just learned. If this had happened before, why hadn’t he called then? He resented that he hadn’t been here to help any of the times before.

“I picked the fight.” Piers buried his face deeper into his folded arms. “This one's on me.”

“Yeah, I doubt that." Tera crossed her arms as she frowned at him. "He’s already been in here, and he seemed like he was just itchin’ to start somethin’. You know how mad he gets about you performin’.”

“It’s not like I’m doin’ it to piss ‘im off.” It wasn't. This was the one thing he truly did for himself.

“Nah, I know that. Jus’ is what it is.” She tapped his shoulder. “Lemme getcha somethin’.”

She walked over to the other side of the bar, sighing as she poked around beneath it. “Barkeep on before me keeps splittin’ up our glassware. Says it makes it easier t’ tend t’ everyone, but…” she gestured out around the empty room. “Who’s ‘everyone’, exactly?”

Piers caught the frustration in her voice, equally disappointed that there wasn’t much he could do to help her out, beyond rolling in here as often as he did, and over-tipping her when he could. Not that he was able to make that happen very often.

He rolled his head over and watched her pick up a glass and inspect it at eye level. He didn’t like the sense of dread that filled the air as she lowered the glass, her eyes still fixed on the window.

“Hate to do this to ya,” she led, looking sympathetically at Piers. “But you know how it is when ya speak o’ the devil.” She set the glass she’d been inspecting on the bar top, grabbed her towel, and walked out around the bar from her end.

“ _Fuck_.” Piers slammed the palm of his hand into the side of the bar as he rolled away from it.

Raihan watched as the two of them seemed to move automatically. Piers slipped around the bar and crouched underneath the countertop from the other side. Tera placed herself strategically between Raihan and the door and pretended to wipe the bar down again.

This was routine. They’d done this before.

Raihan sighed under the weight of this realization, but only had a moment to dwell on it before Rich walked through the door, dragging in an uneasiness that affected them all.

Tera leaned in close to Raihan, still swiping exaggerated circles across the countertop. “Trust me?” she whispered. He barely had time to nod in response before she whirled around to shoot off an all-too-friendly greeting toward the door. “Hey there sir! Be with you in just a sec!”

Without skipping a beat, she turned back around to Raihan. She slipped his signature neon orange hat over the top of his head, shoved it into the pocket of her apron, and leaned back in over the counter, pretending to scrub at a spot in front of him.

“Don’t look at him, don’t speak to him,” she warned in a heavy whisper. "The guy’s _blindingly_ drunk right now. He won’t notice you.” Raihan nodded again. He understood his role here, but he couldn’t ignore the rage mounting in his chest. He frankly wanted nothing more than to deck this guy straight through the window. He fought back a snarl, as he rolled his drink around in its glass and took another sip.

Piers had slipped into an empty corner underneath the counter, fingers wrapped tightly around a metal hook on its underside for balance. Tera’s stride didn’t falter as she handed off Raihan’s hat to him on her walk around the bar.

He grabbed it with nervous hands, and instinctively pressed its fabric to his forehead. It was softer than he imagined that it would be, and still held a light chill from outside. If it weren’t for the situation at hand, feeling Raihan’s hat against his face would be pretty pleasant.

Before he had a chance to let himself be comforted by it, he was whipped back into reality by the sound of voices across the bar.

“Hey hey, back again,” Tara teased with a light chuckle. “What can I get for ya?”

“Where’s Marnie at?” He demanded, skipping any ounce of friendliness. “I wan’ her home.” There was a sharpness behind his words, but their edges blurred together as he spoke. Piers tensed up under the counter at the mention of his sister’s name. He didn’t want her dragged into all of this. Not right now.

Tera handled the situation effortlessly. Like she’d done it a million times. “Ah, she hit the hay pretty quick. The girls are both out cold.” She smiled through the lie as she poured him a drink he hadn’t asked for. “Marnie was pretty worn, so I don’t really want to wake her, you know?”

“Hmph.” Rich’s disdainful grunt rang hard in Piers’ already throbbing head. He held a breath at the top of his throat at the idea of Marnie going home with their stepdad like this.

“Whatever, I’ll come get 'er in the morning.”

Piers let go of the slightest bit of tension. At least Marnie would be safe tonight, and that’s all he needed to know right now.

A heavy silence hung in the air, cut only by the sound of a glass sliding across the bar.

“She’s a sweet kid,” Tera continued, to both Pier’s and Raihan’s relief. The silence had been tense and they were grateful that Tera had the guts to break it.

“At least I got _one_ kid that’s not a little shit.” Rich cut back, taking a sip of his drink and letting the glass fall hard to the counter on its way back down. The anger behind his statement was undeniable, but Piers had become accustomed to it at this point.

The fear that hung in his chest every time he heard that voice raise was just something he’d gotten used to over the years.

“Awe c’mon, you saw Piers up on that stage tonight. Kid’s got a real passion.” Tera lightly nudged his leg under the counter, but it wasn’t helping to relieve much stress after the way things had unfolded.

Rich took another sip of his drink, before slamming it back down.

“Yeah, a passion for bein' a damn brat,” he nearly shouted. “Kid thinks he jus' stroll back in after midnight? And mouth off about it like he owns the place? Not in my fuckin’ house.” He slammed his fist on the bar.

Piers jumped. He shoved his hand — fingers still wound around Raihan’s hat — against his face, in a sloppy attempt to muffle his panicked breathing. He closed his eyes hard, feeling his face get hot with fear.

“Eh, just punish ‘em and send 'em to bed, right?” Tera had clearly tried hard to find a way to backpedal, even with Rich’s unshakeable commitment to throwing a fit about the whole ordeal. “Kids’ll be kids.”

Piers hung onto this. It’d been a while since anyone had called a “kid”, but he supposed she was right. He was only 17 after all — at least for a few more days — and he certainly didn’t feel like an adult cowering under the bar.

“Oh, I did punish ‘im.” His dark, villainous chuckle rang off every wall of the room, while everyone else sat dead silent. “Beat the shit out of him, taught him a lesson for sure – little bitch can’t take a hit though.”

A deeper wave of tension filled the air as Tera fumbled to come up with a response. When she said “punish ‘em” she meant sending them to bed, or taking away their phones, not... _this_.

"Y’can't just hit ‘em and expect ‘em to learn anything from that, y'know?" she said, a hushed strain in her voice.

“It’s always shut him up before.”

Piers tensed under the counter.

Raihan’s rage almost got the best of him. His eyes lifted in Rich's direction, but caught Tera’s on the way. Even from the other end of the bar, he could tell she was breathing heavily as she looked back at him with panic in her eyes. She was just as scared as they were. She was just better at deflecting it.

He stared back into his drink, keeping his sight on Rich from the corner of his eye.

Rich let out a chuckle that dripped with darkness, before he continued. “Kicked him out, but now I’m tryin’a find ‘im.”

Piers heart skipped a beat as he became incredibly aware of how badly he was shaking. He folded tighter into himself, for some sense of stability.

Tera tried to mitigate the situation. “Yeah, I think it’d be best to just apologize and get him back in for the ni—“

“Nah. I’m just not fuckin finished with ‘im.”

Under the counter, Piers’ fear got the best of him, and he crumbled in on himself. Tara heard a small cry from that end of the bar, and swiped a glass off the shelf to cover the sound.

“Ah shit, I’ve gotta get that.” She crouched down to pick up some of the larger pieces of glass. She looked over at Piers, sobbing in the far corner. She’s hoped to get his attention, but he was too far gone.

“Well good luck wi’ that.” Rich’s dismissive words rolled together sloppily as he stumbled off of his stool and wandered toward the door. “I’m gonna go look for the kid.”

In shock, Tara just watched him go, bringing herself back for an automatic “g’night” as he slammed the door behind him. She quickly shot a wordless look to Raihan, who got up and locked the front door.

She hopped over the rest of the glass and crouched down by Piers’ side.

“It’s okay, baby.” She softly placed one hand on his folded arm, and the other on his knee to comfort him. "He left. He’s gone.” She tried to get through to him, but he was stuck frozen, knees to his chest under the counter, barely breathing between rushed sobs.

She looked at him sadly. “I’m so sorry,” she cooed at him. “It’s not your fault.”

Piers heard her, he just couldn’t breathe enough to respond. He appreciated it though.

Soon enough, Raihan had joined her by his side. His fear mixed with guilt as he remembered that he was the one who called Raihan all the way out here in the middle of the night for... this. His breathing slowed a bit while he processed this, but he stayed frozen.

Tera’s hand on his knee had registered to him, but just faintly. Everything outside of him was pretty much a blur at this point. Until Raihan’s hand grazed the side of his face, and everything snapped back into blinding clarity entirely too fast.

He jumped backwards, his back slamming into the bar. He forced a few deep breaths as he inched his way back forward.

“I… I’m..” He stammered, eyes focused on Raihan.

“You’re okay.” Raihan spoke gently, placing his hand back at the side of Piers' face.

He had so many questions, and only having a few of the answers was starting to get to him, but he stayed calm, for Piers’ sake.

“You’re safe here,” he whispered. "We've got you."

Piers wanted to believe those words, but they rang inside his head with a mocking echo. Safety was a concept he hadn’t gotten lucky enough to know well. He did appreciate Raihan’s effort and his naive optimism, but his frantic brain couldn’t place an appropriate response.

Raihan met his panicked gaze with an unexpected softness. “You called for help. We're here to do that.”

He watched the tension in Piers’ body release as his breathing finally returned to normal.

He reached out a hand. "Do you want to come out?"

“…Yeah,” he mumbled.

He placed a shaky hand in Raihan's, and let his friend pull him to his feet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My apologies for the late update on this — this started as a _significantly_ longer chapter, so it's been through a _lot_ of editing over the past few weeks. I opted to just cut it and get the other part out in a bit.
> 
> It's also not particularly easy to write, so there's that too. On top of that, being quarantined has been taking its toll on me (I'm working from home until further notice). I know I don't really have much to complain about though, so I guess I just have to deal.
> 
> I hope you're all doing okay out there ♥️


	10. Chapter 10

The three of them returned to their places — Piers and Raihan seated at the bar, Tera standing attentively behind it — as though nothing had just happened in this quiet little bar.

But it had.

The hush that surrounded them was tense, if not awkward.

Tera and Raihan kept their eyes fixed on Piers, knowing that he’d have to be the one to take the first step forward from this.

He sat quietly, thumbing over the stitching of the orange hat he’d been clutching, before holding it out to Raihan. “This is yours,” he spoke, with a faltering attempt at a smile.

Raihan looked at it, temporarily forgetting it wasn’t still on his head. It was a bit out of shape from being held so tightly, and he could tell that some of the edges of it were a bit more stretched out than they should be. But that was fine, he could always wash it at home.

He reached out to take it from Piers when something caught his eye — a streak of black eyeliner across the inside of the lining.

“Keep it, okay?” He gave a soft smile as he pushed it back, understanding that Piers been through a lot tonight, and could use whatever small comforts he could offer.

Piers shook his head. “Nah. I called you all the way out here for this dumb shit and all you got to do was watch me cry about it like a lil bitch.” He let out a small sardonic chuckle, rolling his head wearily to the side. “I’m not gonna take your time _and_ your hat — ‘m not that needy.”

Raihan had moved past the hat. He barely even heard Piers’ last sentence.

“You’re not a little bitch,” he spoke firmly.

Piers continued to weakly, gesturing at his tired, tear-streaked face. “You sure about that?” He forced another laugh, desperate to break the tension entwined in this conversation.

But Raihan wasn’t laughing. “You just picked that up from Rich.”

Piers’ face fell. He sighed as he set the hat on the bar in front of him.

“Well, it’s not like he’s wrong.”

“He is.” Raihan was still alarmingly firm. He wanted to make sure he was being clear, but he could tell that the severity of his tone was having an effect on Piers.

He sighed and leaned in closer, and made a better attempt to be reassuring. “Not a lot of people are strong enough to handle shit like this, you know.”

Piers shrugged. “Strong” wasn’t exactly the term he’d use to describe himself right now.

He was relieved to see Tera walking back over to them with two full glasses. She slid a drink across to him. He wrapped his hand around it, grateful for at least a small diversion from the night.

“Cheers. To somehow not gettin' caught in that whole mess.” She lifted her own glass, shaking her head in disbelief.

Piers made every effort to return the energy of her smile as he moved to lift his glass.

But he couldn’t. His hands were still shaking so badly that he had no hope of holding his drink without spilling it everywhere. He let it hit the table as he dropped his head into his hand and curled his fingers into his hair in frustration.

Tera met his anger with warmth. "Chin up, kid." She smirked at him as she reached to the shelf behind her. She spun around with a smile and a straw between her fingers. “I gotcha.”

Piers instinctively pushed his hair back as he sat up, more than a little irritated by how dramatic he was acting.

He wasn't sure whether to hate himself or laugh at himself over how embarrassing he was being. He’d done more than his fair share of the former though, so a laugh came naturally.

“Thanks.” He smiled, taking the glass, and a much-needed sip of his drink.

But by the time he lifted his eyes to meet Tera’s, her expression was radically different.

He furrowed his brow as he tried to process the horror on her face. "Ter, what's up?"

He spun to Raihan for an answer, starting to panic as the same urgency dawned across his face as well.

It wasn’t until he felt a hand touch the side of his head that he understood what was going on. He’d slipped up.

Raihan wordlessly turned Piers’ head towards himself and gently tucked his fingers under white strands of hair that were slowly turning red.

Piers slowly closed his eyes over a deep breath as he tried to deflect. “It’s _fine_ ,” he insisted, feeling suffocated by the weight of the pity on both of their faces.

“It is _not_ fine.” Tera's voice was sharp, but the hand she placed on his arm was soft as she continued. “I don’ think I can help ya out with that one.”

She watched him closely, trying to analyze further. “You’re gonna have to go up to Circhester in the morning.”

Piers sighed, ready to counter her request. But instead, he simply nodded. It always bummed her out not to be able to help as much as he needed, and he knew that feeling was particularly unforgiving. That was precisely why he didn’t want her to find out about the head injury in the first place, but there was no going back on that now.

“You two can stay here for the night," she offered. “I’m closin’ up shop here soon anyway, and the place is locked up so ——“

A loud bang at the door rang through the bar, leaving a hushed panic in its wake.

Piers instinctively snapped to his feet at the sound, eyes wide as he tightly gripped the edge of the bar with one hand, the other on the counter’s surface, ready to push him off to run.

It took a few moments of silence and stillness to conclude that whoever had come to the door had gone, but there was a left a spike of tension left inside.

Piers groaned lightly as he lowered his head back to the counter, finally accepting that there was no threat here.

Raihan put a hand to his shoulder to help ground him, and turned to Tera to continue the conversation. “Thank you. But maybe that’s not the best idea.”

She nodded in understanding, but wished she had something more to offer.

“Piers.” Raihan reached out for his input. “Do you think it’s safer to just stay outside for the night? Seemed pretty quiet out there.”

Piers was still shaken up, but lifted his head as a response.

Tera reached into a cooler behind the bar and placed a pair of water bottles onto the counter. “Take some water, an’ I’ll run home to grab some blankets or something so you guys aren’t cold out th—“

“Hey, you’re good.” Piers cut her off. She had already done so much for him tonight, and he didn’t feel like he deserved any of it, much less _more._

This was a facet of his personality Tera was more than familiar with.

“Piers.” She spoke firmly. "I'm not sendin' ya up to Circhester without somethin' t’ keep ya warm.”

He wanted to argue. He wanted to stop requiring so much of everyone’s time and effort. But he knew Tera well enough to understand that she wasn’t going to let him decline her offer to help out.

“Swing by in the morning, okay?” She gave yet another tired smile. “I’ll leave the door open for ya.”


End file.
